Monday 26 May 2014

Scientists discover channel used by catalyst to produce ammonia, vital for food and fuel crops

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The open conformation of the nitrogen channel in a molybdenum-dependent nitrogenase. Enlarge the image to see a side-by-side comparison of the open and closed forms. Results: Mother Nature’s helper in turning nitrogen from the air into ammonia is an enzyme called nitrogenase that uses molybdenum and iron; scientists want to learn natural catalyst’s secrets and apply them to synthetic catalysts. To do so, they first need to know how the nitrogen gas reaches the heart of the catalyst. While scientists have posited long, convoluted routes, a team from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Utah State University discovered the actual channel the nitrogen uses. It is short and direct. They discovered the channel by identifying groups of proteins on the catalyst’s surface that guard access to the metal atoms, twisting aside to allow nitrogen in. “Our channel is the only one anyone has seen in action,” said Dr. Simone Raugei, a theoretical chemist at PNNL who worked on the study. Why It Matters: Producing ammonia for use in fertilizer is an energy-intense reaction, known as the Haber-Bosch reaction, that requires high temperatures, around 500 degrees Celsius. The reaction consumes hydrogen gas derived from fossil fuels. Nitrogenase takes fundamentally different process to produce ammonia, and this

The post Scientists discover channel used by catalyst to produce ammonia, vital for food and fuel crops has been published on Technology Org.

 
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Ouch!

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Ouch!
And it's a huge statement that we can not only detect but see this sort of stuff on another planet. We've come a long way!

 #outerspace

Corina Marinescu originally shared:

Huge New Mars Crater Found by NASA Spacecraft
Researchers have discovered on the Red Planet the largest fresh meteor-impact crater ever firmly documented with before-and-after images. The images were captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The crater spans half the length of a football field and first appeared in March 2012. The impact that created it likely was preceded by an explosion in the Martian sky caused by intense friction between an incoming asteroid and the planet's atmosphere. This series of events can be likened to the meteor blast that shattered windows in Chelyabinsk, Russia, last year. The air burst and ground impact darkened an area of the Martian surface about 5 miles (8 kilometers) across.

Source and further reading:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2014-162

#nasa   #mars  

 » see original post https://plus.google.com/116000959328274308893/posts/KRZbga8TuQM
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Why don't octopuses get stuck to themselves?

Science Focus

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Life can't be easy for octopuses. Sure, they're universally loved for changing color, opening jars from the inside, and predicting the winners of World Cup games. But they have eight very flexible arms to keep track of, which aren't even under their full control. Each arm is fairly autonomous, and a lot of the motor control happens in the neural circuitry of the arms themselves instead of the brain.

Forget about the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. At any given moment, not a single octopus tentacle knows what the other seven are up to — and neither does the octopus.

... More 
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 » see original post http://theweek.com/article/index/261575/why-dont-octopuses-get-stuck-to-themselves
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Immune children aid malaria fight

Science Focus

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An antibody produced by children who are naturally resistant to malaria could lead to an effective vaccine for the disease, scientists report. 
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 » see original post http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27522950#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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There has been a big setback in the search for alien life

Science Focus

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The Conversation

Given that we are unlikely to be visiting an exoplanet any time soon, astronomers have been contemplating whether it might be possible to detect indications of simple life — a biosignature — from a distance. Many think that the strongest case for extraterrestrial life would be the discovery of oxygen and methane on the same body. They also think that the likelihood of finding such a biosignature is greatest on an Earth-like planet that is orbiting a sun-like star.

Astronomers who hope to search for these biosignatures in expolanets, however, may be in for a disappointment. New...

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 » see original post http://theweek.com/article/index/261016/there-has-been-a-big-setback-in-the-search-for-alien-life
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Omega Nebula - Our Amazing Universe Stickers

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: omgneb, star forming regions, omega nebula, uplifting, messier 17, stars, hrbstslr, galaxies, outer space, universe, awesome astronomy images, ngc 6618, inspirational, heavens, european southern observatory, eso, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A great outer space picture featuring a three-colour composite image of the Omega Nebula (Messier 17, or NGC 6618), based on images obtained with the EMMI instrument on the ESO 3.58-metre New Technology Telescope at the La Silla Observatory. North is down and East is to the right in the image. It spans an angle equal to about one third the diameter of the Full Moon, corresponding to about 15 light-years at the distance of the Omega Nebula. The three filters used are B (blue), V ("visual", or green) and R (red).

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image code: omgneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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An ALMA Telescope Array Time-Lapse

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Two-lock box delivers cancer therapy

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Rice University scientists have designed a tunable virus that works like a safe deposit box. It takes two keys to open it and release its therapeutic cargo. The Rice lab of bioengineer Junghae Suh has developed an adeno-associated virus (AAV) that unlocks only in the presence of two selected proteases, enzymes that cut up other proteins for disposal. Because certain proteases are elevated at tumor sites, the viruses can be designed to target and destroy the cancer cells. The work appears online this week in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano.   An adeno-associated virus capsid (blue) modified by peptides (red) inserted to lock the virus is the result of research at Rice University into a new way to target cancerous and other diseased cells. The peptides are keyed to proteases overexpressed at the site of diseased tissues; they unlock the capsid and allow it to deliver its therapeutic cargo. (Credit: Junghae Suh/Rice University)     AAVs are fairly benign and have become the object of intense study as delivery vehicles for gene therapies. Researchers often try to target AAVs to cellular receptors that may be slightly overexpressed on diseased cells. The Rice lab takes a different approach. “We were looking for other types of biomarkers beyond

The post Two-lock box delivers cancer therapy has been published on Technology Org.

 
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A peppering of craters

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Space science image of the week: A mosaic from ESA's SMART-1 shows the Moon’s cratered south pole in the heat of lunar summer

via ESA Space Science

http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2014/05/A_peppering_of_craters_at_the_Moon_s_south_pole

A new way to make sheets of graphene

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Graphene's promise as a material for new kinds of electronic devices, among other uses, has led researchers around the world to study the material in search of new applications. But one of the biggest limitations to wider use of the strong, lightweight, highly conductive material has been the hurdle of fabrication on an industrial scale.

via Science Daily

Flatland optics with graphene: Smaller and faster photonic devices and circuits

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Researchers have introduced a platform technology based on optical antennas for trapping and controlling light with the one-atom-thick material graphene. The experiments show that the dramatically squeezed graphene-guided light can be focused and bent, following the fundamental principles of conventional optics. The work opens new opportunities for smaller and faster photonic devices and circuits.

via Science Daily

Eagle Nebula, Pillars of Creation Oval Sticker

Here's a great sheet of stickers featuring a beautiful image from deep space


tagged with: breathtaking astronomy images, eglneb, young stars clusters, star forming nebulae, messier 16 ngc 6611, pillars of creation, inspirational, eagle nebula, heavens, stars, eso, european southern observatory, vista

Galaxies, Stars and Nebulae series A breathtaking outer space picture showing a spectacular three-colour composite mosaic image of the Eagle Nebula (Messier 16, or NGC 6611). It's based on images obtained with the Wide-Field Imager camera on the MPG/ESO 2.2-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory.

At the centre, the so-called “Pillars of Creation” can be seen and this wide-field image shows not only the central pillars, but also several others in the same star-forming region, as well as a huge number of stars in front of, in, or behind the Eagle Nebula.

The cluster of bright stars to the upper right is NGC 6611, home to the massive and hot stars that illuminate the pillars. The “Spire” - another large pillar - is in the middle left of the image.

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image code: eglneb

ESO/J. Emerson/VISTA www.eso.org
Reproduced under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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Click to customize.
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